1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a guide tool for use by a mason while laying block or brick (i.e., concrete block, concrete or clay bricks, or other masonry units) in order to form a section of a concrete block or brick wall (for example) which includes a door frame. Commonly, a door may be hinged in the door frame, and when open provides for passage through the block wall section. Alternatively, the door frame may remain always open (i.e., without a door), thus simply providing for a finished surrounding to an opening in the concrete block wall.
By use of the present inventive guide tool, a block mason is able to more quickly and more accurately lay concrete block or brick adjacent to and with reference to a door frame (i.e., thus forming a particular section of concrete block or brick wall), and to interlock a door frame into the concrete block or brick wall section as the wall is constructed. The guide tool secures one end of a mason's line which is used by the mason as a guide while laying the concrete blocks or bricks. According to one preferred embodiment, the inventive guide tool is sized and configured to be manually engaged with and to retain a selected vertical position on standard sizes of door frames, such that the guide tool may be slid or moved manually upwardly along such a door frame as laying of successive courses of concrete block or brick progresses. According to an alternative embodiment of the present invention, the guide tool is configured to allow its adjustment in order to manually engage upon and retain its position on other sizes and configurations of door frame, while still being slidably adjustable in position upwardly as the laying of concrete block or brick progresses.
2. Related Technology
Presently, when a block mason is to lay a concrete block or brick wall section which will include a door frame, a concrete slab or floor will first have been placed, and the door frame is then attached at a selected location to the slab or floor and plumbed (i.e., made vertical). Following this preparatory work, the block mason then establishes a vertical reference at a distance from the door frame (possibly at a distant corner of the slab or floor). This vertical reference is sometimes commonly referred to as a “truth pole” because it and the door frame are vertical and horizontal references with respect to which the concrete block or brick of the wall are to be laid. In many cases, this truth pole is a vertical member or pole attached to the floor or slab, or driven into the earth, and with one face of the member being truly vertical and in horizontal alignment with one desired face of the concrete block or brick wall to be constructed. Ordinarily, the block mason will stretch a mason's line between the truth pole and the door frame and lay a “lead” of concrete block or brick proceeding from the door frame toward the truth pole. The lead is a triangular arrangement of blocks, each in the proper horizontal and vertical position, and extending from the door frame along the desired line of the concrete block or brick wall to be laid. For example, the first course of the lead may include 8 blocks, while the second course includes 7 and ½ blocks. The next course would then be 6 blocks, followed by a course of 5 and ½ blocks, and so on. As each block of this lead is laid by the mason, the desired offset of the block relative to the mason's line must be established and maintained adjacent to the door frame. That is, the horizontal and vertical alignment of each successive block must be maintained. Otherwise, errors in the resulting block wall will be cumulative, and the wall may wonder off line, or be off of true horizontal. As the concrete block or brick are laid, the door frame is also interlocked with the concrete blocks or bricks using mortar. Using such a lead construction, the wall is laid by progressive extension of the successive block courses, each course having only one or only a few blocks added at a time. The successive concrete blocks or bricks are added to the lead with reference to both the preceding blocks (i.e., to the vertical and horizontal alignment of the lead) and to the mason's line until the block wall is completed.
Importantly, with the use of a lead as described above, the block mason has to apply mortar for the blocks or bricks successively in horizontal and vertical joints as successive blocks or bricks are laid by reference to the vertical and horizontal reference of the lead and mason's line. So, the block wall laying process becomes essentially a two-step alignment process of: (1) laying the lead blocks or bricks adjacent to the door frame by reference to the mason's line, and (2) extending the lead by laying the block or brick in partial courses successively toward the truth pole to complete the wall by reference to the vertical position and horizontal position of the lead and mason's line. And, undesirably, the application of the mortar for the joints between the successive blocks or bricks as the lead is extended must be done successively horizontally and vertically essentially as individual mortar joint sections. Hereinafter, the description of this present invention will refer to concrete block only, as the problems for a mason in laying concrete blocks and bricks are essentially the same.